The Multiple Commandments of Modding

[osdiaus]

When I'm looking at mods, either on the nexus on on the steam workshop; I often think to myself: "Gee, it would be really nice if there were a set of rules that everyone followed when modding, it would solve a lot of problems". Of course, I know that would be ridiculous, mods are made for all sorts of people after all and having uniform rules would just unfairly restrict that; BUT, if theoretically there were a set of rules for modding (a set of commandments, if you will), I thought it would be interesting to get people's opinions on what those rules should be. This can be anything from "something that you wish people wouldn't do" to "A rule that you personally restrict yourself with when modding".

 

Please, in keeping with the theme, place a Roman Numeral such as "I", "IV", etc (in sequence, clearly) before your "commandment", and only add one new "commandment" per post.

I shall give us a starting point:

 

I. Thou shalt not define "difficulty" as having 50 insanely buffed Deathlords attack the player as soon as they enter a building.

[ghosu]

II. Avoid the comment section, no matter how good your mod is. There will be dumb comments...always.

[ripple]

When I'm looking at mods, either on the nexus on on the steam workshop; I often think to myself: "Gee, it would be really nice if there were a set of rules that everyone followed when modding, it would solve a lot of problems". Of course, I know that would be ridiculous, mods are made for all sorts of people after all and having uniform rules would just unfairly restrict that; BUT, if theoretically there were a set of rules for modding (a set of commandments, if you will), I thought it would be interesting to get people's opinions on what those rules should be. This can be anything from "something that you wish people wouldn't do" to "A rule that you personally restrict yourself with when modding".

 

Please, in keeping with the theme, place a Roman Numeral such as "I", "IV", etc (in sequence, clearly) before your "commandment", and only add one new "commandment" per post.

I shall give us a starting point:

 

I. Thou shalt not define "difficulty" as having 50 insanely buffed Deathlords attack the player as soon as they enter a building.

 

You can't set rules regarding what sort of mods people 'make', you certainly can't enforce them, since I should be able to make any mod I want on my own PC, for my own personal use, without some random person I've never met tell me what sort of mod I can or cannot make.

 

However, to distribute a mod, you have to have the files hosted somewhere, and the site that hosts the file(s) can stipulate certain rules--'commandments', if you want to call them that--which establishes what sort of mods the site is un/willing to host and make available for public download. So what I am saying is, technically speaking, Steam and Nexus already have 'commandments' about mods....

 

I am more annoyed by mods with dirty records, that edit vanilla quests, NPCs and make a mess of them, people who alter vanilla spaces without a clue what 'navmesh' means (which is just about 95% of the 'I redid the Skyrforge!' mods...), or plop dozens and dozens of spawnpoints and markers in the worldspace but refuse to acknowledge their mod might be causing CTDs, badly written continuously updating scripts, newbie mods that have no real description, only an advertisement ("Mystery Cave! Download and see what's in the Mystery Cave!") and so on....

 

So as far as ideas for 'commandments' go, like 'divinely ordained rules that the community must obey upon pains of death', a mod that just adds 50 Draug Deathlords is somewhere at the bottom of my list of 'things you should not do as a modder' (unless, of course, the mod description said nothing about Draugers, only a 'Mystery Cave!')....

 

Or, you could just tell the modder that you are annoyed about some aspect of her/his mod, and see how s/he responds.

Edited December 21, 2012 by ripple

[osdiaus]

Well.

 

This was a rather short lived topic.

 

Erm...i'll post another, to try and keep it alive.

 

III: Thou shalt not edit worldspaces not relevant to your mod and "play" around with things and THEN make your mod proper, without undoing the results of your uncontrolled experimentation.

[Deleted1308005User]

I personally think this would be great.

There's so much of those annoying god weapons, weapons with daedric skin and just slightly different stats, caves without descriptions, companions with big boobs, FIRST MODS.

TALOS SMITE THE MAKERS OF "FIRST MODS"

The fact that mod is your "first" is not excuse to make BAD mod.

You can make mods on your PC, keep them to yourself.

And once you make something which is actually good, THEN upload it to nexus/workshop.

 

Usually those who make their "first mod" actually make "god weapon" and they yet claim it's not OP.

any weapon that has base damage higher than daedric/dragonbane is OP.

Especially if it's lying on farengar's desk, or craftable with iron ingot and chicken egg.

 

Of course, there's great mods which lack something, maybe textures are horrible, but it can be improved.

Mod makers should read the feedback and react to it.

If 3/4 of the downloaders say that the mod is crap, useless, or there's ten exactly same mods around, author should think if his mod is really necessary.

 

Anyhow, I know it's impossible to make this sort of "rules", as it'd mean every mod type should have their own criteria. If armor doesn't fill the criteria, it gets deleted.

It'd be hard to overwatch such a forum, as admins would need to take a look at every mod, decide if it fills the qualifications for "good" mod and so on. Just impossible.

Anyhow, just for fun:

 

IV: Thou shalt NOT publish your first mod. Keep it to yourself, polish it, make it better. THEN publish it.

[Grimoa]

V: Don't name your mod "Awesome This" or "Better Someone" when all it does is change something or someone to your personal preference.

[tyrannynexus]

VI: Thou shalt not edit vanilla assets and will create duplicates of them before use.

[bben46]

How about VII Thou shalt not name your file 'Main' - Instead how about giving the main file the same name as the mod instead. I counted 3 mods just yesterday where when you download it, the file is 'Main.zip' or similar. :rolleyes:

 

And, VIII Thou shalt not forget to include a mod description in your zip - with the name of your mod replacing the generic 'readme.txt' - such as 'mod_name.txt' instead. I see far too many mods that when you download them, there is nothing there but the file name (such as 'Main.esp') and nothing in the zip to tell you what it is, what it does or any special info needed. :wallbash:

[ilikecheese1337]

IX. Thou shalt post images and an incompatibilities section. Edited December 27, 2012 by ilikecheese1337

[scrivener07]

what number are we on? lol

X. Thu shalt not use scripts they do not understand. Im talking about the copy/paste scripters. They copy chunks of other peoples code because it does something similar to what they want with no care about the damage they could be causing. If you cant fully explain every line in a script snippet, then do not use it or ask for help.